


Love and The Force

by egosoffire



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Force Sensitivity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egosoffire/pseuds/egosoffire
Summary: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence.Poe is Force Sensitive, yet refuses to be trained by Luke Skywalker. Instead, he chooses to be trained by the boy he saw from across the galaxy.





	Love and The Force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icandrawamoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/gifts).



> for icandrawamoth  
> I hope you like it!

Poe was eight years old the first time that he realized something was strange about him. Everyone knew that his family’s tree was a unique artifact, sensitive to the Force. His own father laughed a bit, when he was asked about it. “It’s something special, but I’ll be damned if I ever really understand it,” Kes told their neighbors with a hearty chuckle. “Still...it feels like it’s right where it belongs.” 

Poe understood the tree, though, in a way that his father could not. He sat near it during the day, often, especially after his mother passed away. One day, about two months after her passing, the eight year old sat under the tree and felt something. He felt an energy thrumming through the base of the tree, a strength that could only be described as incredible. 

It was that night that he saw another boy. The boy was a bit younger than him, maybe five or six, and looking at a holovid. On the video, there was a masked figure that Poe recognized from his father's reluctant war stories. Darth Vader. Darth Vader had been the most evil man in the whole galaxy, but Luke Skywalker had saved him, and had allowed him to die free and in peace. It was one of Poe's favorite stories.

"Why are you watching that?" Poe asked the boy. 

The younger child turned around, eyes wide with shock. "Where did you come from?" he asked. He then looked back at the video in front of him. "Darth Vader was my grandfather." 

"Your grandfather?" Poe asked in disbelief.

The little boy nodded.

The vision ended in that moment.

Of course, Poe had gone to his father. "Did Darth Vader have grandchildren?" he asked, wanting to know the truth.

His father had been at least mildly amused by that. "Yes, I suppose he does have one.”

"Luke Skywalker has a kid?"

"Not Luke. His sister Leia."

"The General?" Poe had asked with wide eyes. He had grown up on stories of her and admired her even more than Luke Skywalker sometimes. "She has a son?"

"Yep. I met the kid once a few years back. He was just a baby then.” 

"Ben."

His father raises an eyebrow at that. "How did you know his name? Leia and Han haven't been 'round you since you were a baby yourself..."

"I heard it somewhere," Poe said. It wasn't entirely true, but it was also not a lie. "Do you think I can meet him someday?"

His father had nodded, and that was all there was to that. 

In the year that followed, Poe had more of those tiny glimpses into what he could do. Mostly, the things that he could do were subtle, and nobody knew except for Poe himself. He might get frustrated doing his chores and send things flying across the area in front of him, or there were things like the time his mother’s old ship sort of just repaired itself. They were things he could quietly deny having anything to do with, to spare his father.

Yet, Poe was almost ten. It was at his early birthday celebration that Poe’s abilities became evident. He was helping his neighbor, Thora, as she baked the cake. The mixing bowl full of delicious batter was sitting on the top of his elderly next door neighbor’s countertop **.**

“Poe, sweetheart, bring that bowl over here,” Thora said warmly.

So, Poe had walked over, bowl in hand. On his awkward child’s legs, however, Poe had tripped over his feet and fell forward. The bowl of cake batter, however, did not fall with its clumsy nearly-ten-year-old companion. No, it merely hovered in the air next to Poe, leading to a nice scream from Thora. 

“What just happened?” she whispered, as Poe stood up and took the bowl in hand. “What did you just do?”

The woman had, of course, told his father, who was naturally skeptical. Thora, however, had seen Luke Skywalker use his abilities once, a long time in the past. “I think it’s The Force, Kes. What other option is there for what I saw?”

So, Luke Skywalker was contacted. That was when Poe met Ben Solo for the first time. The young boy came along with his uncle, eager to meet another child who was sensitive in the force.

Poe hardly even knew what that phrase meant. He met Luke and Ben at the landing port with his father, eyes wide and ready. Poe was about to meet a lifelong hero.

Luke Skywalker didn’t look as impressive as Poe’s childlike innocence had built him up to be. He was just a man, around his father’s age, with light hair and a warm smile. He waved to Poe’s father.

Ben was a bit younger than Poe, exiting the ship after his uncle. “It’s you…” Ben said, awe in his big dark eyes. “You actually are real.” 

Poe reached out and when their hands touched, it had been some sort of magic. His imaginary friend was not imaginary at all, and that was quite a feeling.

Then, Luke Skywalker offered to train him. “I am taking several young children,” he had told Poe’s father. “Like your son, they are all those with a sensitivity to the Force. They will learn the ways of the Jedi.” 

Poe’s every instinct, at that, screamed no. 

It took a lot of convince Luke Skywalker that Poe did not want to train. Even Poe’s father insisted on it a few times, but Poe Dameron was stubborn, even as a child. He wanted to learn the ways of the Force, sure, but he wasn’t going to go off in some secluded place, leave his dad and his dreams of becoming a pilot like his mom.

He was twelve and Ben ten when Ben stayed on Yavin IV for a three month period. That was when Ben’s eyes lit up, and he told Poe in earnest, “I’ll teach you.”

They had sat together outside, near the tree. Two boys that hadn’t even reached puberty. When he was older, Poe could remember the way that little Ben, with his big ears and chubby cheeks, had reached out and taken his hand **.**

“I felt you across the galaxy,” Ben said. “That was so cool. Now close your eyes.” 

Ben had held his hand then, and told him to listen. That was how Luke had first introduced Ben to the force, teaching him about the shifting and changing tides that made their universe. The Force was in everything around them. 

That first day, with ten year old Ben holding his hand, Poe had made a couple of pebbles on the ground of the yard fly. His eyes had been opened to what he could be.

Ben and Poe trained in secret for eight years after that. Luke did not approve of Poe’s training being done by a child, but they would have nothing else. Ben sat with Poe and taught him the meditations, the ways to become more in tune with his powers.

Together, they made fun of the old Jedi ways. “They’re idiotic,” Ben said, as they sat in the warm sun on a random planet -- he didn’t even know the name. Poe had just found the little rock in his flying and it didn’t register on the map.

It was too warm for life, he supposed, but not bad for a little vacation. He and Ben sat cross legged, practicing using the Force to project images at one another.

“Ben!” Poe nearly yelped, as the image of Luke Skywalker on a bad resistance poster sprung to his mind. “I told you that in strict confidence.”

Ben laughed. “You found my uncle hot growing up,” he said. “I feel I have the right to make you suffer a little.”

Poe pushed the image out of his mind. He then floated the book by Ben’s side over to Ben and smacked him with it.

“Why’d you do that?” Ben asked. Ben got up and crossed the space between them, arms crossed.

Poe stood as well. It was amazing how much taller Ben had become. He had to stand on his tiptoes to reach. 

“How are you so tall?” he asked.

Ben’s smile made his heart flutter. “Just born that way,” Ben said, looking at Poe for a long, lingering moment. “Maybe I’m just this tall because it irritates you.”

“I just don’t like standing on my tiptoes,” Poe teased, arching further up on his toes to make a point. 

Ben leaned back down, arching forward so that he and Poe were looking directly eye to eye. “Does this help?” he asked with a mischievous grin. 

“It does.”

Their lips were so close that Poe could feel his heart racing. He and Ben were a bit more than friends, but their label was something that was strange, not clearly defined. He leaned over and kissed Ben, determined to be the bold one and take the next step.

Ben’s lips were soft and Ben sighed, surprised. All around them, Poe could feel the warmth and comfort of The Force. It wasn’t just the hot planet, a planet that didn’t do a great job of keeping life, but tried its very best. It was also Ben, a Force to be reckoned with.

“Are you sure this isn’t just your thing for Skywalkers talking?” Ben teased.

Poe smacked him and he didn’t need the Force to do that.

The years passed, and Poe found himself thriving in the ways of the Force. He was strong, he was capable and he used those skill to become a better pilot. 

“My mom wants you with the Resistance,” Ben said one night, as they lay in bed together. No-labels had sort of progressed into something that could be labeled, at least from the outside. Poe loved Ben and Ben Solo loved him back. He could feel it. 

“Are you sure about that?” Poe laughed. He tried to laugh it off, act like it was an incredible thing, but he could feel it too. The Republic was starting to fail, and the Resistance was preparing for a war. “I mean, your mother is...a legend.”

“Do you have to say that?” Ben laughed. “She’s still my mom. But, Poe...she’s going to ask you. What do you think you’re going to say?”

Poe sighed, feeling the sadness and fear in Ben. Luke had warned Ben, once, that the darkness in him could draw him to the dark side, but in Poe’s new method of ‘Jedi’ training, he had come to the conclusion that the fear was invalid in every way.

“I’m going to say yes,” he said honestly.

“I knew you would. That’s why I’m joining you.”

“Joining me?”

“Yes.”

This surprised Poe more than anything. As the war had stirred up, Ben had wanted nothing to do with it. Even as his uncle and the “Jedi” got ready to fight, Ben had pulled back, claiming that was not how he wanted to use his abilities. He and Poe were something outside of everything else. They didn’t need to be a part of the war.

“What changed?” Poe asked.

“Do you ever get glimpses of feelings, from the Force?” 

Poe nodded. 

“Well, I have a feeling,” Ben said. “This war isn’t something I can ignore.”

“It isn’t,” Poe said. “Our parents fought to keep the galaxy safe and we need to do the same thing.”

“Together?”

“Oh yeah.”

Ben leaned down and swooped Poe into a kiss. Poe found the gesture dramatic for the understated sweetness that was his Ben, but it was warm and comforting and just what they needed. He felt like he could tear the budding First Order to shreds.

Later, when the two rebels met a young girl from Jakku, they had quite a story for her. “You were born with these abilities?” she asked Ben. 

“Yes,” Ben said, looking from her over to Poe, the daring pilot that had always been at the forefront of the resistance. “I feel like I had these abilities from the day I was born. He got them when he was about what...eight?”

“Yeah, eight. There was cake batter…”

“Cake batter?” 

So, they explained it all to her, to help her, to make her realize that she was strong, and she could help them defeat the First Order. She could be a hero that brought peace to her galaxy. 

“You two are in love, right?” Rey asked, her words gentle, almost delicate.

“Very much,” Ben said. “The Force is many things, Rey...but love is a big one.”

Poe had blushed at that. “Yes, love is a big one.”


End file.
